More Than “Just” Photographers – Inspiration for an AMAZING Life

Dreaming, Our Dreams  //  13th November 2012

Over the last few weeks, we have fielded many questions and heartfelt comments from some of our closest friends about our business and our new brand. (ie. Why did you drop photography from your name? When I go to your website, I can’t even tell it is a photographers website. etc.) All of these questions have come from their hearts and have ended up in great conversation!

The truth is, a lot of thought went into the Liz and Ryan brand and new site. When we went through the rebranding process with Making Brands Happen, we were challenged to dig deep and we came up with a few realizations that lead us to where we are today with a website that helps us achieve our goals of being more than “just” photographers:

1. The thing we LOVE most about being “photographers” is the ability to make a difference in people’s lives. Yes, we LOVE to provide amazing photographs that our couples and clients can cherish for years and generations to come. However, we even more so love the process. Over the years of owning our own “photography” business, we have realized that the moments we get to spend with our clients are cherished moments. It is usually a few hours they have given of their time to us and it is our responsibility to take those few hours and make them magical. We have realized that we have the power in those few hours to really impact their lives… and THAT is our love.

2. We have the ability to make a difference in the lives of others everyday! Our blog provides an online platform that gives us the opportunity to reach out and share a little bit of inspiration to more people than we could ever imagine photographing.

3. We are unique and we have something special to share! We are 27 and 28 (soon to be 29 with a big b-day for Ryan coming up! WAHOO!) years old. We are happily married for over 5 years (yes, we got married young! ;) ) and we wake up more in love than ever each and every day. We have worked the corporate jobs that we thought would make us successful and after realizing there was so much more to life than sitting at a desk doing work that we were not passionate about, we took our careers into our own hands. We took the time to dream and with God’s help, we created our business. We have taken HUGE leaps and risks. All of these things, we have done with passion and love together. These decisions and actions have lead us to this point in our lives where we feel INCREDIBLY blessed.

We love living the unconventional life. We love taking time to dream and then following our hearts to make those dreams a reality. We love date nights and entertaining with our friends. We love finding new recipes and challenging ourselves to make them… together. We love seeing something in a store and thinking, “we can make that”… and then actually doing it. We love being grateful for every single day that we have been given. THIS is our AMAZING LIFE.

4. Living an AMAZING LIFE (whatever that may look like to each individual) is certainly something that everyone strives to achieve and we can help people get there. We have the ability through our everyday interaction with our online friends and in person with our clients to provide inspiration and encouragement to seek out that Amazing Life… to think about what that looks like and make it happen!

5. By sharing examples of living an AMAZING LIFE, we have the ability to inspire other people to live their own AMAZING lives.

It is our goal with our new brand and http://lizandryan.com to do just that. Yes, we are still photographers and we LOVE that experience of capturing AMAZING LIVES. God has given us a talent to help illustrate our couples and clients storybooks of their amazing lives and we are honored to be able to do that. However, we never see ourselves as “just” photographers.

We have a passion for love and love stories. When we photograph our couples, it is ALWAYS our goal to help them feel more in love than ever. We want them to wake up everyday feeling incredibly blessed. We want them to look at their photographs every single day and remember that exact moment it was taken and the AMAZING love they share.

We have a passion to seek out happiness and what brings people happiness. By sharing things that bring us happiness (cooking and DIYing), we hope to spark a passion and interest in others to find what makes them happy.

We have a passion to be surrounded by amazing people and to share our love for entertaining with them. Any excuse we can come up with to pull our creative spirit together to host a party and share a good time with our friends and family… we are on it! ;) It is true that surrounding yourself by incredible people makes you a happier person. AND when you can throw in an excuse to celebrate together… that makes it even better!

So… as you can see, we are passionate about a lot of things! ;) But the overarching theme is that we are passionate about living an AMAZING life and doing everything that we can to inspire others to live their own AMAZING life. We are certainly not “just” photographers, but we believe in the power of inspiration and making this world a better place! Documenting it along the way is one incredible gift we have to share!

If you haven’t seen our promo video yet, be sure to check it out below to learn a little bit more about us and our passion to live a more AMAZING LIFE.  

Liz and Ryan: This is Us //  Promo Video // by Jeremy Mitchell Cinema on Vimeo

The Amazing Life Manifesto: Do The Unexpected

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  12th November 2012

This past week we were BLOWN AWAY by an unexpected gesture that literally made our heart beat a little faster. Our friends Justin & Mary put out a little message on their Facebook page to encourage their friends to hop on over to the Liz and Ryan Facebook Page and share a little love with us. About two hours later, with a HUGE new group of fans, we saw Justin & Mary’s post and literally got teary eyed. We were speechless.

This unexpected gesture took them probably 3 seconds… but it will stick in our hearts for a very long time. It was not about the number of new fans or social media in general… it was the fact that their unexpected gesture left us with a HUGE amount of encouragement.

Ryan says in the video that the unexpected gesture by Justin and Mary changed our lives. That may seem a little exaggerated… but the truth is, that simple unexpected gesture rocked our world. It has us thinking everyday about little things we might be able to do to help spread the love to other people. Knowing that everyone has the ability to share some encouragement that may rock someone’s world and help them get closer to their dreams is kind of an awesome thought.

We hope you take a moment this week to “Do The Unexpected” and rock someone’s world! You have the ability to change someone’s life! How AMAZING is that?!?

Justin & Mary… so grateful for YOU! Thank you for rocking our world and encouraging us in ways that leave us speechless! ;) xoxo!

The AMAZING Life Manifesto: Cook Together

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  5th November 2012

As you all probably know by now after seeing all of the Ryan Cook’s features on our blog, Ryan is the chef in or family.  I love to cook and love to be a part of the process… but I am just not quite talented in the cooking department!

It would be really easy for me to just take advantage of Ryan’s strengths and let him cook me dinner all the time… but I don’t.  I can happily say that I am Ryan’s Sous Chef.  When Ryan cooks, I am right there by his side to chop or stir (stirring is my favorite!  ;) ) or lend a hand wherever I can.

Cooking is not always easy… especially if you are adventurous and like to try difficult recipes.  I think any chef would say that they enjoy a little help when whipping up a special meal. Our advice to share today from the Amazing Life Manifesto is to cook together.  Enjoy the process- not just the result.  This is helpful in so many ways.  It makes the job easier for the chef; it provides more time together to soak in life; and cooking together provides a result that you both can celebrate accomplishing together for a good meal or laugh together when it doesn’t exactly turn out as you had expected.  It is no longer a chore that has to be done… it is something that you can enjoy doing together!

The AMAZING Life Manifesto: Take Delight in Who You Are

Amazing Life Manifesto, Dreaming  //  29th October 2012

So often we go through life doing everything that we are suppose to do…. or everything that society tells us we are to do. We wear the clothes that we wear because they are what the fads tell us to wear. We say the things that we say because that is what “everyone” else says. We go to college because the overwhelming majority tells us that is what we have to do to get the corporate job that everyone sees as successful. We go to school to be a doctor, or a lawyer, or teacher because that is what we know and have aspired to be since we were kids.

We are all unique. We all have different DNA. Our family background and dynamics are different. Yet, we grow up trying to fit into a mold that society tells us to fit into. We often try to be like other people and do what makes them successful.

We are here today to say “Take delight in who you are and what makes you unique.” Take the path of the road less traveled. Think about what makes you unique and celebrate that! You are never going to be successful if you are constantly trying to be someone else.

In our business, it is so easy to look around at what everyone else is doing and think we should be doing the same thing! When we started our business we did just that. We built our website and our brand around what we thought everyone else would think was elegant and professional looking. We constantly made decisions based on what everyone else was doing. When we rebranded earlier this year… we focused on what made us unique. We no longer look at other photographers and think, “ohh man, everyone else is doing that so we should too.” We have learned to be confident in ourselves and take delight in who we are… not what others think we should be.

Take some time this week to think about what it is that makes you who you are. What fires you up? What makes you tick? What does fun look like to you? Don’t think about how you “should” answer those questions… think about them honestly and then celebrate that! Be unique and forget about what everyone else thinks!

Dream Storm: Dreams = Reality

Dream Big, Dreaming  //  25th October 2012

As I sit at Starbucks, enjoying a tasty Pumpkin Spice Latte, I begin to think back on how we started our business.  It started with a crazy dream to run our own photography business and live life for us.  At the time we started our business, it was hard to imagine that in less than three years, both Liz and I would be working full time for our business!  Over those three, and now almost four years, we came to realize that the dreams we dream are often actually too small, because when you take the first step, no dream is to big to be turned into reality. Hopefully you all will be able to look back three years from now and think the same thing about your dreams.

If you followed along for our last two posts on Dream Storming by now you should have found your inspirational space and have a list of 3-5 BIG dreams.  Now it’s time to turn those dreams into reality.

1. Take the first step

Before any dream can become a reality, you must take action, face your fears, and take the first step.  Let’s start with the first dream on your list.  Write out three simple things you can do now that once accomplished, you will be one step closer to achieving your goal.  The key here is to start small.  We want to slowly build momentum and see progress quickly. Trying to accomplish your entire dream all at once will just make you frustrated and ready to give up.

I recently posted on our Facebook page that one of my dreams was to one day have a product or book we create sold in Williams-Sonoma.  This is obviously no simple task and will take a ton of work.  But first, let’s start small, simple and fun, because if you are not having fun then what’s the point?  The first step I am going to take as soon as I finsih this post is to go to Williams-Sonoma to really peruse the store to see what types of things sell well, how they are styled, and how we could create something that might one day sit alongside the same shelves.  We LOVE to entertain are always drawn to the cookbook section and fun little prepared food gifts. Who knows, maybe one day we will have our own book on entertaining for couples.  Although simple, even just the thought of taking the step to get out of the house, and envision a product we create being sold in Williams-Sonoma is invigorating.  And that’s the point, we want to start small, take a little step, and then a bigger step, and before we know it, we will have an avalanche of momentum behind us.  Not sure where to start?  Well, that brings us to part 2.

2. Ask for help 

When we started our business, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing.  We LOVED photography, capturing photos, and had a pretty good understanding of how to use our cameras, but after that, we were absolutely lost.  So we asked for help.  It was amazing to see how much people were willing to share when we simply asked for help.  At one point or another, every great idea, business, or product started at exactly the same point yours did.  Most people are extremely grateful and take great satisfaction in helping other’s achieve their goals.  As long as you are genuine, appreciative of their time, and grateful, more often than not, when you ask for help, someone will extend their hand to lift you up.

3. Surround yourself with people that will hold you accountable to your dreams

Accomplishing a huge goal and turning dreams into reality is tough work.  Along the journey, it is often easy to get discouraged.  You might hear “no” or “I’m sorry” a lot so it is extremely important to have someone that will hold you accountable to your dreams.

We recently posted about creating a Board of Life Directors.  One of the purposes of creating our Board was to surround ourselves by people that will hold us accountable.  You don’t have to create your own board but we’d love it if you did. Instead, start by simply telling a friend your dream and ask them check in with you at the end of each week.  Or, ask them if they would mind if you sent them an email once a month listing the progress you have made on your dreams.  Knowing that there is someone you can share your thoughts with is a huge motivation to turn your dream into a reality.

4. Make your dreams known

If there is just one piece of advice you take from this post and put into action then this is it.  Make your dreams known.  You would not image how much of an impact this has had on the success of our business.  The more you talk about your dreams to people the more opportunities that will present themselves.  You never ever know who someone might know or what someone might need.

Don’t be afraid to share you dreams.  We recently mentioned that we would LOVE to photograph a couple for a wedding or engagement session in Europe.  We let people know about our dreams and that we were traveling to Europe earlier in the year.  By doing so, the opportunity to photograph one of our Brides during her dress fitting in Barcelona and a couple for an anniversary session in Paris presented itself.  We are confident that this would have never happened had we not continually shared our love of travel and dream to shoot in Europe with the world.  Check out the photos from our Paris session here.  We would still love to photograph an actual wedding in Europe (Italy or France to be specific) so let us know if you know of anyone in need of an international wedding photographer! :)

If your still reading at this point, it’s time to take the first step.  Leave a comment below and let us know what your dreams are.  You never know who might be reading this post! Go make your dreams a reality!